New version of Linux kernel appears

Fattest penguin since Danny DeVito

Linux messiah Linus Torvalds released the new Linux 3.10 kernel over the weekend.

Version 3.10-rc7 is the last release candidate of the latest kernel and is packed with the most changes in years.

It appears that there were some 11,900+ changes, but Torvalds said that despite the large number of commits, it's all boringly straigthforward.

He said that the bulk of the patch is made up of drivers while the rest is evenly split between arch updates and "misc".

Despite the size of the patch there are no major new subsystems this time around, although there are individual new features

Torvalds said that the large number of changes meant that he was thinking of releasing another RC dry run first but, decided against the idea and went ahead with official Linux 3.10 commit.

There is a whole lot of things that come along with version 3.10 and the kernel has been eagerly anticipated.

These include bcache block layer cache which will allow for caching through the use of SSD cards.

There is also support for "full dynamic ticks" that would lessen the timer interrupt's trigger frequency to just one interrupt per second from up to a thousand (depending on kernel configuration). This will in turn reduce the interrupt processing load of the kernel. This enhancement is more for the High Performance Computing (HPC) market.

Linux 3.10 will come with interfaces that would addressing of the Unified Video Decoder (UVD), which is a part of Radeon HD graphics cards. Userspace drivers for video accelerator are also planned for the next major Mesa 3D release.